Interesting encounters

Since a year ago, I moved to Edmonton and I chose to live close to work to enjoy a fresh walk back and forth to my office and home. My morning walks are usually quiet especially in winter. But, my afternoon walks, regardless of the weather conditions, are just another story!

4:30pm is a peak time for staff to leave their offices and everyday, I cross at least one couple or a group of people leaving in a hurry and walking fast, to go home?! I presume ... and talking with full energy. One would think, it must be an adrenaline rush! Surely, people must be happy to go home at the end of the day. Yet, when you pay attention to the conversations, and ironically, it is almost the same conversation that I hear everyday, by different people or actors ... you hear people complaining!

I decided to pay more attention to the details of those conversations that crossed my way - you get more details while waiting at the traffic lights intersections. Not that I am curious, but it struck me the level of unhappiness of people. No one is happy at their workplace! Everyday, someone complains about someone else, whether their own boss, or a colleague who tried to hijack a meeting or just a disagreement where obviously, someone tried to control others.

Why have we become so unhappy? why do we always complain? why no one talks about the good things that happened with them during the day? And, it is always the fault of the other ... no one admits their share to the story. It is quite interesting what we have turned into ... and I am not going to blame it on the stressful situations that we live or strong characters we meet and make us uncomfortable.

Relating those conversations and the general mindset of people, and reflecting on what I do for a living - I support people to go through the transition phase of the change and cross the river to the other side where supposedly, the future state is better than the current one, yup ... I do change management and manage the people side of change... I wonder, add to the stress that any new change brings onboard ..... I have to deal with people who are already unhappy and probably cannot see any positive side in anything! Another challenge to resolve ...

I will start by taking full accountability for my own happiness and choose to be happy. I always believed that we are born free and we always have a choice in life ... and I choose to be happy and stop complaining.

Hope and positivism are contagious!

10 April 2017

Dima Baltagi